Irene's scream and the harsh static of comms failure stabbed my ears like ice picks. A trap! Their real target had always been the town!
"Fall back! Return to the town!"
I growled into my helmet mic, spinning around instantly.
At that moment, from the dead silence of the mine, a voice floated out—soft, chilling, piercing straight through my helmet's sound dampening.
"Thomas… my love… I'm so cold…"
It was Martha's voice. Thomas's wife.
I caught a glimpse of Thomas's massive frame stiffening violently. His head jerked toward the mine.
It was a lie!
"It's fake! Thomas!"
I grabbed his tactical vest with so much force the straps groaned under the strain.
"Hold yourself together! Irene and Zach need us!"
The confusion and pain in Thomas's eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by cold discipline. He shook his head violently and tightened his grip on his weapon.
We didn't hesitate. Like arrows from a bowstring, we sprinted toward the chaos of Pinewood.
What greeted us was worse than I had feared. The once-empty streets were now wrecked. Doors had been violently torn open. Scattered civilians ran screaming in primal terror.
My handheld terminal showed Zach's signal flickering weakly. Red thermal pings flashed briefly before vanishing into heavy interference.
"…system crash… too much interference… at least three… no, four targets… scattered in town…"
Zach's breathless voice crackled with static.
Irene's signal was steady, locked in at the town pharmacy but unmoving. I switched to her vitals. Elevated heart rate, but stable breathing.
"Irene, report!"
"I'm in the pharmacy. Back door sealed… one is outside… large… Oh God, David, its dorsal eye spots… more than the file showed… and they're rotating, watching everything…"
Her whispered horror chilled me. Mutations. And more than one. The mine had been a diversion.
"Thomas! Get to Irene! I'll find Zach! Stay on comms!"
"Understood."
Without hesitation, Thomas changed course like a charging tank.
I ran toward the last ping from Zach, near the elementary school.
Running, I forced my mind into cold analysis. These SCP-939 specimens were too organized. They weren't randomly killing—they were driving, splitting groups, using sound decoys to delay us. Not predatory instinct… tactics. Crude, but effective coordination.
"Contact with Irene. Safe for now. Engaged with smaller target, fast! Moving to town hall—civilians inside!" Thomas reported.
Irene's voice followed urgently. "The smaller one—too agile! Tranquilizers barely slowing it down!"
I burst into the school's empty hall. The air stank of chemicals. The door to the lab was ajar. I kicked it open.
Zach was there, sweat and grime on his face, frantically mixing colored liquids in a beaker. Empty fire extinguishers lay on the floor.
"Zach!"
"Captain!"
He lifted the beaker like a lifeline.
"I'm mixing a makeshift suppressant. Should block their scent and thermal tracking temporarily! But… Captain… they're communicating! I caught high-frequency signals—not mimicry. Actual language. Complex patterns… and the large one… it's leading them!"
Leading? A Keter-class predator developing command behavior? It defied all records.
"Will it work?"
"Should create a high-density chemical fog."
A crash of breaking glass echoed from the town hall. Thomas roared, gunfire followed.
"Damn it!"
I switched channels. "Thomas! Report!"
"One broke in! Tranquilizers weak! Irene!"
"I've got an idea!"
A hissing spray and an eerie screeching followed.
"Water… high-pressure spray is messing with its thermal sense! It's retreating!"
Good enough.
"Zach, with me! We're heading to the town hall!"
I grabbed him and we dashed outside. We barely cleared fifty meters before a massive shape lunged from the shadows, reeking of blood and rot.
The largest SCP-939. Bigger than any archived photo. Muscles rippled under semi-transparent crimson skin, vascular patterns glowing faintly, dorsal eyes flickering.
It didn't attack immediately. It tilted its head.
Then came a voice I will never forget.
"Daddy, look! I drew you!"
I froze. That sunlit afternoon flashed back—my daughter holding a crayon drawing, smiling so bright.
My heart clenched painfully. I stopped. A cold, seething rage rose inside me.
"Daddy… are you breaking your promise again?"
The voice dripped disappointment.
In my hesitation, it lunged. The foul breath hit me like a wave.
"Look out!"
Zach screamed and hurled the beaker between us and the beast.
CRASH!
The chemicals erupted into thick, stinging yellow-green vapor.
"Cough—move!"
Zach yanked me into the fog. Behind us, the beast howled in confusion. The temporary chemical bomb had worked.
We stumbled into Thomas, Irene, and a handful of terrified civilians. Thomas bore fresh claw marks. Irene's fire axe was stained and dented.
"They're… pulling back?" Thomas gasped.
I scanned around. The SCP-939 had stopped chasing and were instead withdrawing toward the center of town. Defensive? Not random killing. Calculated.
"They're herding, not hunting."
I quickly assessed.
"Their objective may not be extermination. Not yet. We can't stay. Evacuate the town! Request heavy backup!"
We escorted the civilians under covering fire. A middle-aged man slipped and fell behind.
A medium-sized SCP-939 burst from an alley, jaws open.
"Cover me!"
I threw myself into its path, switched my Gauss rifle to max output, and fired.
The particle beam struck the joint of its forelimb. A burst of burnt flesh and smoke erupted. The creature shrieked in agony.
Thomas grabbed the fallen man.
"Go!"
We reached the emergency extraction point. The town behind us lay eerily silent. The red predators did not pursue. They had withdrawn completely—as if guarding something.
A helicopter's roar approached. A rope ladder dropped from the hovering aircraft.
At the forward outpost, the shaken civilians were quarantined. We immediately started debriefing and equipment checks.
Irene rushed to her portable analyzer, feeding in both the earlier mine samples and a fresh tissue scrap from Thomas's armor.
Minutes later, she paled.
"David…"
Her voice trembled with horror.
"The samples… contain human DNA… embedded within the SCP-939 genetic structure."
My stomach dropped.
"Meaning?"
"I cross-referenced the town's missing persons and genetic database."
She lowered her voice to a whisper.
"The non-anomalous DNA in these SCP-939… matches the six members of the Marcus family. They vanished from Pinewood a decade ago."
She looked up, eyes wide with terror and an awful realization.
"They weren't just feeding, David."
Her voice shook.
"They were searching. Or worse… they believe they're trying to find their family."